Doctor Who BBCN17 - Sick Building Read Online Free PDF Page A

gorgeously appointed rooms with a connecting door. Tiermann was adamant that they stay and prepare themselves for dinner. Martha was glad to put her feet up after their traipse through the woods, but the Doctor kept interrupting her.
    Three times he had rapped on the middle door and come marching in, saying: ‘And another thing. . . ’ as he aired his many and varied thoughts on their visit so far, and vented his observations about their host. ‘What did you think of him, eh? Bit chilly? Bit creepy?’
    Martha had experience of surgeons and doctors, and some of them had struck her as just as heartless and dispassionate as Ernest Tiermann seemed to be. To them, their human patients were simply problems to solve. Their bodies were intricate machines that needed examining and possibly fixing. Rarely did these particular doctors think about the everyday lives or the feelings of the people whose ailments they considered. Perhaps, Martha thought, it would be distracting, or too upsetting, to think of them as real people. Perhaps that was how the medics protected their own emotions.
    But Tiermann. . . About him she wasn’t so sure.
    Meanwhile she wanted to luxuriate and relax and think it all over.
    She had already discovered that her en suite bathroom contained a large claw-footed iron tub painted pale blue. She smiled at the Doctor, ushered him out, and told him to come back in at least half an hour.
    ‘And another thing. . .
    he’s so complacent,’ the Doctor burst out.
    ‘There’s less than one and a half Earth days until this whole valley goes ker-splat, and what’s old man Tiermann doing? He’s inviting us 23

    to dinner! He’s telling us to get all dressed up and how much his wife is looking forward to meeting us. . . ’
    The Doctor was exasperated, stomping up and down on the thick pile of the carpet in Martha’s room. She had only just finished dressing, and the two robots that had been quietly helping her were standing back discreetly, to admire their handiwork. Martha was a vision in a pale cream gown, one run up for her especially by the robotic seamstress that had swept in, forty minutes ago, and taken her measurements in the wink of an eye. Now Martha was admiring her own reflection in a tall burnished mirror and eventually the Doctor’s rant petered out and he stared at her.
    ‘You look very nice,’ he said. ‘Why am I still in my same old suit?
    Where’s my new threads?’
    Martha shrugged bare shoulders. ‘You’ve been too busy stomping up and down complaining about everything.’
    The Doctor threw himself down on a silken divan and pulled at his hair distractedly. ‘I’ve been checking this place out. It’s outrageous, Martha. These people don’t seem to do a single thing for themselves.
    These rooms are full of. . . pampering and preening machines. . . ’
    ‘I know,’ she smiled, as one of the robots leaned in to help with her earrings. They were so quiet and skilful, it was almost like they weren’t even there. It had only been an hour or so since she had entered Dreamhome, but already Martha was getting used to the easy luxury of the place. The bath she had slipped into had poured itself, adding just the right amount of bubbles and lotion. It had startled her only once, as she lay back, by speaking to her directly and asking if she wanted the hot water topping up. Apart from the occasional surprise like that, she could see herself getting quite accustomed to the automated facilities here.
    The Doctor wasn’t half so impressed. ‘Mechanical chicanery! Cheap and nasty gee-gaws! That’s all they are. Tiermann’s no genius. He’s just showing off with his tacky robots.’
    One of Martha’s helpers swung her slim fibre-glass body round and seemed to give the Doctor a nasty stare. Then she and her companion turned and swept out of the bedroom, apparently in high dudgeon.
    24

    ‘Now you’ve upset them,’ said Martha. Her whole body was tingling with sheer luxurious delight. She